


To What Will Have To Be Enough

by Team_Two_Cats



Series: Suikovember 2020 [9]
Category: Rhapsodia | Suikoden Tactics (Video Game), Suikoden Series (Video Games)
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Memories, chosen family, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27710452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Two_Cats/pseuds/Team_Two_Cats
Summary: Suikovember 2020 Day 25 Prompt: NostalgiaFollowing the events of Tactics, Andarc and Seneca share a bottle of Kanakan liquor and reminisce about their time with Kyril.
Relationships: Andarc/Coop (Suikoden), Seneca/Frederica (Suikoden)
Series: Suikovember 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019115





	To What Will Have To Be Enough

Seneca pours another tall glass of Kanakan liquor and slides it across the table. Then she caps the bottle and takes her own glass, leans back in her chair. The fire burning nearby is warm but she shudders all the same. Seems harder to get warm since, well, since everything.

The silence drags. Andarc just sits there, looking at the glass of ale, as Seneca occasionally sips, looking at the fire.

“You…remember when Walter got his head stuck in that cave?” she asks, suddenly. “Sorry, I just had a vision suddenly, of him with his head caught between those two rocks. And Yohn, looking so worried. And Kyril…he couldn’t have been older than ten, he found that nest of water vipers.”

Andarc rocks back in his seat a little, and finally picks up his glass, knocks back half of it in one go. “I think I have a sketch, somewhere,” he says. “In my notes at the time. Not of the time itself, of course. I was so busy, trying to help Walter, trying to get Kyril back.”

“He thought they were cute!”

“Well, they were young,” Andarc says. “Though they were no less venomous. I think those snakes could have killed about a hundred people. And Kyril wanted to _pet_ them. And Walter, he was freaking out so much he nearly ripped his ear off. We had to cut the whole trip short just so he could get some proper medical attention.”

Seneca laughs and puts back the rest of her drink. She leans forward, uncaps the bottle, and pours another, then motions at Andarc. He shakes his head.

“Do you remember when Kyril got Yohn that pair of shoes?” Andarc asks.

“Oh, and she tried so hard to wear them!” Seneca says. “You could tell that she wanted so bad not to let him know that she couldn’t, because he was so young at the time.”

“He bought them with his own money,” Andarc says.

“And so she ended up getting them altered so that she could actually fit them over her hooves.”

“Only she kept catching them on _everything_. Because the toes were empty. She fell into the sea that one time on the coast.”

“I think Walter made sure to _lose_ them not long after that. And I can’t tell who was more upset about it, Kyril…or Yohn.”

Seneca sighs and leans back again.

“Of course,” she adds, “that makes a bit more sense now that we know that…that she was his mother. All that time, and they never told any of us a thing about it. Not even Kyril.”

“They had their reasons,” Andarc says. He finishes his drink and puts the empty glass on the table, but doesn’t move to refill it. “It couldn’t have been easy, wanting to acknowledge it, knowing that if they did there would be…questions. Maybe even some unscrupulous mages wanting to do…a dissection.”

The silence returns. The fire cracks. Seneca gets up and throws another log on. Returns. Drinks down the rest of her glass. This time she fills both hers and Andarc’s glasses.

“You remember when Kyril killed his first giant crab?” Andarc asks, taking his now-full glass.

“He cried!” Seneca says. “Said that he didn’t want to think that he had broken up a crab family. Until we told him that’s not how crabs worked.”

“I almost think the bigger thing was that he got to eat it! He was at that age where he could just eat just about anything put in front of him, and when he got his enormous portion his eyes just about fell out of his head they were looking so hard at that food. Some melted butter, some lemon—he wanted to go out the next day and kill another.”

“But he was too full!”

They laugh. It’s been a while, since they really laughed. Since, well, since everything. Seneca rubs her eyes, which are watering. Damn things. She shouldn’t be this way. She looks across the table, and sees that Andarc is already crying openly.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going,” he says. “First Walter, now Kyril and Yohn. O-our family…”

Seneca sniffs and nods. Somehow, it’s easier to hold herself back, seeing Andarc cry. She swallows. “But at least we know that they’re together. That, maybe, Kyril will come back some day.”

“I don’t see how,” Andarc says. “The rune cannons are gone. How can they come back, with the tools that opened up the rift between worlds?”

Seneca shrugs. “You know magic is all shaking sticks around to me,” she says. “But I have to imagine that if someone found out how to do it by accident, then there’s a way to do it on purpose. Carefully, and purposefully, in a way that’s not going to pull anyone into our world against their wills…or vice versa.”

Andarc is slow to nod. “Yeah, it’s possible,” he says. “But that’s considering that Kyril wants to come back.”

“You think he wouldn’t want to see us again?” Seneca asks, voice sharp.

“I’m saying that he suffered a lot of hurt with us. Not because of us. But with us. Maybe…he won’t want to come back, if what he finds is…better.”

Seneca sniffs. “He’ll be back,” she says. “He wouldn’t just leave us behind forever. We’re his family, too. Maybe not his mom and dad. But…like his siblings. Close, is what I mean. He wouldn’t just walk away.”

Andarc nods, but doesn’t say anything. Seneca huffs, and gets back to drinking.

“I miss him,” Andarc says. “I miss all of them.”

“Join the fucking clud,” Seneca says, pouring another for them both.

“Should we be out there? With the others? Looking for him?”

“He’s not hiding out in Falena or Harmonia,” Seneca says. “He’s in an entirely different world. If he has the power to, he’ll come back when he’s ready. If he doesn’t…then we’ll just have to find a way to keep going anyway. He wouldn’t want us to just…stop living.”

“But how can we live, without him? Without them all?”

“Runes you’re a sorry shit,” Seneca says. “You have more to live for than just Kyril and Walter. What about Coop? You two seemed like you…rekindled something.”

Andarc smiles. “Maybe.”

“And I’ve been paying far too little attention to Frederica. That will need to change.”

“You think we can just…get over it?” Andarc asks.

Seneca shakes her head. “I think we can _survive_. I think we can _remember_. And I think that will be enough, regardless of how much it hurts.”

Andarc nods slowly. “I guess it’ll have to be.”

Seneca raises her glass. “To what will have to be enough,” she says.

Andarc raises his glass. “To what will have to be enough.” They clink their glasses, then drink. The bottle of Kanakan liquor is nearly empty.

“You remember that time when Kyril found that baby wild boar?” Seneca asks.

Andarc can’t help but smile. “It’s mother nearly gored me, of course I remember.”

The two chuckle, and continue reminding each other of a time that’s a place on a map where they can no longer go. But they have their memories, and they have hope. That for whatever paths have closed to them, there will always be one open between Kyril and themselves. That whatever happens, he’ll always have a home in them.

**Author's Note:**

> I never liked Andarc/Seneca, so you can really see my preferences on display in who I think they end up with. Tactics has such a sad ending. Even when it's good, it's also just so hard. Anyway, cheers!


End file.
